


The Snake Charmer

by sahem62896



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Missing Scene, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 19:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3499571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahem62896/pseuds/sahem62896
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sister Pete and Bonnie meet to talk about you-know-who over a cup of coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Snake Charmer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenPhoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenPhoenix/gifts).



> I always thought these two would have a lot to talk about, especially in the wake of Keller's attempt to manipulate Sister Pete into getting Beecher to see the light and come back to his loving embrace, even after breaking his arms and legs. We know that this ultimately drove her to reconsider her commitment to her profession and to Catholicism... but I think something else must have happened too, don't you think? Once again, this piece is for GreenPhoenix who agreed that it would be cool to be a fly on the wall during this conversation. As usual, I own the rights to nothing; this is just for fun.

 

_"Now who's really the fool?" —Reba McEntire_

 

It was early January, but winter seemed to be taking its time getting to New York City. Her coat was open and a cool breeze rustled her hair as she walked up Sixth Avenue, dodging a knot of oncoming pedestrians. All the way to the diner, she kept telling herself that this was a bad idea, not to mention unethical by her professional standards as both a psychologist and a nun. Even so, something more base and primal was driving her... something that perhaps only another woman would probably understand.

But not just any woman... her.

Wife number two and four.

She arrived at the diner and went inside. Bonnie was not hard to spot. It had less to do with her physical size or the enormity of the slice of chocolate cake in front of her as it had to do with the fact that Chris Keller had pointed her out a month or so earlier. Once met, never forgotten, especially under those circumstances.

Bonnie looked up from her cake and raised her eyebrows. "Sister Peter Marie?"

"Yes," she said with a smile as she made her way over to the booth. Every nerve ending in her petite frame was sizzling as Bonnie scooted out of the booth and stood to meet her. She had already seen Bonnie's elephantine form once before and had been both shocked and amused as it glommed itself onto Chris (who, incredibly, seemed to be loving every minute of it). That day she had wondered what Chris had seen in her. Now she was wondering what had happened to her in the past that had opened the door for such an unnerving amount of self-neglect and gluttony. Had she been molested as a child and was making herself unattractive to protect herself? Was it because Chris had told her that he thought she was sexy at any size and that she had naïvely believed him... and kept believing him? Was it because someone else's drug use — maybe even Chris's — had prompted her to make her drug of choice food instead of something else? The feeling intensified and the questions began to multiply as her hand enclosed around Bonnie's small one with it's stubby fingers.

Sister Pete sat at the table. "Thank you for agreeing to meet me, Mrs. Kel... uh..."

"It's Nelson now," she said as she resumed her place in front of her cake. "But Bonnie is fine."

Sister Pete nodded. "Bonnie, then."

"Don't worry, Sister," she said with a very pleasant grin. "Every once in a while, I mistakenly introduce myself as Bonnie Keller. Luckily, Roger hasn't been there to hear it."

Sister Pete smiled back tightly. "Well, thank you for agreeing to meet me here, Bonnie."

"Sure. I mean, It isn't every day that the prison psychologist where your ex-husband is currently incarcerated asks you to meet her for a 'little chat,'" Bonnie replied, drawing quotation marks in the air with a pair of hooked fingers.

Sister Pete's gaze lowered. It was the same way she would look, she supposed, when her superiors found out about this little rendezvous.

The waiter came and deposited two cups of coffee on the table before walking away to help the next customer. Bonnie thanked him and returned her gaze to the nun. "I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty of ordering you a cup of coffee," she said.

"Oh, not at all. Thank you."

"Of course," she said, picking up her fork and extracting a dainty piece of the chocolate mountain in front of her. "Conversation about Chris always goes better with a cup of coffee. Am I right to assume that' s why we're here?"

Sister Pete had been hoping to ease her way into the topic of Chris, but Bonnie's words had rendered that plan obsolete. "Yes, you're right," she admitted.

"Mmm-hmm," she said as a dreamy smile spread across her face. "Well, who'd he fuck over this time?"

Sister Pete sat up with a little start. That was not what she had been expecting to hear, least of all from the mousy, tender-looking woman who struck Sister Pete as the last person in the world who would drop the F-bomb in front of a nun. She gathered herself a bit and wrapped her hands around the cup of coffee, hoping the warmth would somehow soothe her troubled state of mind. "Well, actually..." she began.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Bonnie asked, popping the forkful of cake into her mouth.

The nun felt her eyes widen and her mouth fall open. How on earth had she guessed?

Bonnie swallowed her food and pointed the business end of the fork at her. "Definitely was!" Teeth appeared in her grin. "I know that look anywhere. That's the Chris-Keller-got-to-me-and-I-can't-believe-it-happened look I have seen on many a face."

Sister Pete was flabbergasted. It was one thing that Bonnie had just put all that information out there so nonchalantly, but the fact that she had done it with a smile which communicated that it was charming to play sport with a person's emotions was another altogether. Well, at least there was no need to be cautious anymore. Her mouth closed and her gaze sharpened as she fetched up her outrage. "Yes, it was me," she said icily.

Bonnie raised her eyebrows. "Let me guess. He got you in touch with your long lost feminine side, Sister?"

Sister Pete's mouth fell open again and all that came out was a tiny squeak of embarrassment. She'd guessed right, but that brought her no peace of mind. If anything, it caused her more alarm.

"Oh, don't be so coy," Bonnie said, picking out another forkful of cake. "You think you're the only woman he's done that to? Hell, you're not even the only nun he's done that to."

This was starting to be too much. "What?" she managed to say.

"In Catholic school when he was twelve," Bonnie clarified. "At least, that's what he said. And now that I see the way you're looking at me, I have every reason to believe it was true."

Sister Pete could tell that she was losing control of this conversation and clamored to get her wits back. "Bonnie," she began again. "Chris used me to get to a another prisoner whose arms and legs he broke."

"Toby Beecher."

Sister Pete threw her hands up and flopped them down on the table. So much for that plan. "How do you know all this already?" she demanded.

"Oh, Chris told me all about it."

"He what?"

"He told me that he was in love with a man named Toby Beecher whose arms and legs he had been blackmailed into breaking, and that he was trying to make it up to him."

"So you know all about what happened between the two of them?"

Bonnie nodded and popped the bit of cake into her mouth.

"Then how you can just sit there and eat your cake like it's no big deal?"

Bonnie swallowed and set her fork down and smiled placidly. "I can sit here and eat my cake like it's no big deal because I am not the one who forgot whom I was dealing with, Sister," she said.

"Excuse me?" she asked coldly.

Bonnie tented her fingers under her chin. "Have you ever heard the story of the young Indian brave who found the rattlesnake freezing to death on the ground on a cold winter day?"

She closed her eyes and drew in a breath. "Yes," she said, opening her eyes. "The snake was dying and wanted the boy to save his life by putting him down his tunic next to his skin and warming him up with his body heat."

"And what happened?"

"The boy didn't want to at first because he was afraid the snake would bite him," she replied, "but then he agreed to do it when the rattlesnake promised not to bite him."

"And the snake bit him anyway," Bonnie said.

"Yes."

"And why did the snake bite him?"

Sister Pete knew where this was going, but answered regardless. "Because it was in his nature."

"Exactly," Bonnie said. "And let's not forget that that boy knew what the snake was when he picked him up."

Sister Pete could feel her jaw clenching and the felt the metallic taste of one of her fillings flooding her mouth.  "So this is all _my_ fault? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

A small, knowing smile touched the corners of Bonnie's mouth. "Sister, you go to work every day in a den of poisonous snakes, and you not only picked one up, you picked up the king cobra and held it close hoping to keep it warm against your bosom."

The memory of her dream about Chris reaching across the desk fondling her breast came back to her. She could almost feel the ball of his thumb grazing across her nipple and hurried to squelch the velvety lust that had engulfed her the last time. She groped for the outrage again and clutched it tightly. "And what about you? Did you know what Chris was both times you married him?"

"Honey, I knew what Chris was the first time I laid eyes on him," she said. "I saw those sparkling blue eyes, that I'm-just-a-loveable-bad-boy grin, and that strut he always walks with and I knew right away that he was the worst thing that could ever happen to a person like me."

"And you went with him anyway," she noted.

"Yep."

"Why?"

Bonnie's gaze lowered and sharpened a bit. "You've obviously never been the fat girl, huh Sister?"

Sister Pete's eyes widened and she began to nod. "I see," she finally said.

"Oh, do you?"

Sister Pete inclined her head, and felt herself slipping into the therapist role. "Well, a sexy young man notices you and shows you affection..." she began.

"You clearly don't know," Bonnie interrupted smugly.

Sister Pete recoiled. "I beg your pardon?"

Bonnie collected her fork from the table top. "I'm not a fragile little teenager hoping someone sees the beautiful person I am inside, Sister. Never was either. And despite whatever you may have learned in your psychology textbook, I think you would be surprised to discover that more than a few of us either outgrow that bullshit somewhere along the line or never succumb to it in the first place."

"Are you sure that it's not a lot of anger covering it up?" the nun asked, noticing the way that Bonnie's hand had tightened around the fork.

"Even if it is," Bonnie replied, "it doesn't change the fact that I knew what Chris Keller was all about the moment I saw him. I knew he was going to try to play me for one of those after school special stereotypes you were trying to pin on me just a second ago."

"And you went with it anyway," Sister Pete observed.

"It's what he wanted," she said, picking at her cake again.

"You knew he was going to break your heart?" she asked.

"I knew that he thought he was going to," she said. "I just helped move things along in that direction."

Confusion jabbed at Sister Pete. "What?"

Bonnie shook her head and laughed. "Who do you think introduced him to his third wife, Angelique, in the first place?"

The outrage wriggled free from Sister Pete's grasp and shock slid into it's place. "Are you telling me you were playing him the whole time?"

The smile on her face had turned into something crafty and sly. "Like I said," she said through a mouthful of cake, "I'm not a fragile little teenager hoping someone sees the beautiful person I am inside and never was."

Sister Pete was horrified to realize the woman was right. There was no sensitive soul striving for unconditional love inside her. She was just as manipulative as Chris, if not worse. The sad-looking woman whom she had seen light up when Chris sauntered into the visitors' lounge that day was all an act, and Chris had probably known it too. It hit her right then why Chris thought of her as the best of all his ex-wives; she was the only one who knew his game. Not only that, but she was the only one who appeared to be able to play it as well as him, if not better. Was that the reason he had married her a second time? Was he hoping to outwit her and failed? If so, was that why he had divorced her the second time? More questions swarmed her, and she felt a mad urge to scream and bat them away as if they were tangible things.

"So now that you know exactly what it was that you picked up, though you should have realized it before," Bonnie went on, "what exactly is it that you want from me?"

Sister Pete scrambled for her composure again and found it. "I'm worried about what he's going to do to Tobias," she said.

Bonnie set her fork down and picked up her coffee cup. "Don't be," she said with a shrug.

"How can I not be after you just unloaded all this garbage on to me?" she cried. "He just broke the man's arms and legs and is trying to manipulate him a second time the same way he did with you!"

"He won't," Bonnie said after taking a sip of coffee.

"Don't be stupid," she said, trying to get the other hand with this woman who was clearly in colossal denial. "You think that for one minute that just because Chris is with a man now that he won't play the same old game as always?"

Bonnie looked amused. "I'm the stupid one? 'Cause if so, then how is it that I have no degree in psychology yet I know more about this than you."

"Because you married him twice," she retorted. "And you can sit there for as long as you want wolfing down your cake and telling me that you were the one who was in control the whole time, but you are the one who married him twice!"

Bonnie's face did not crumple even slightly. "And that also qualifies me more than you on the subject of Chris Keller," she said. "Need I remind you that when you sat down at this table with me that you admitted _you_ were the one who was getting played by Chris and not Toby?"

Sister Pete sat up straight then. The sense of victory after her tirade evaporated. "He told me he did it to find out if Tobias loved him no matter what," Sister Pete said, realizing it was too late to take back the confidentiality breach she had just committed.

Bonnie raised one eyebrow. "That's what he told _you_ , but what did he tell Toby?"

Sister Pete went silent. She didn't know what had transpired between them outside of her office.

"Sister, he did what he did because he was coerced into doing it," Bonnie reminded her. "If he told you otherwise, then it's because he's trying not to incriminate Vern Schillinger any further than he has to."

The nun swallowed. "You know all about that too then? What went on between them in Lardner?"

Bonnie shook her head sadly. "Oh Sister," she said. It was unnecessary to say the rest of the sentence and both women knew it. 

"Do you even care what might happen to Tobias?" she asked.

Bonnie waved the question away with her free hand. "If he doesn't do anything crazy, then Chris isn't going to harm him again." 

Sister Pete made one last try at gathering her anger and fighting back. "Sorry, but my experience with Chris leads me to think otherwise."

"Your experience with Chris doesn't matter," she said, setting down her coffee cup. "His objective is winning Toby back and that's all. Whatever has taken place between the two of you was the means to that end. And if you can't figure that out, then you probably shouldn't be working in that place with the people who live there."

Sister Pete supposed that the feeling would have been the same if Bonnie had reached across the table and smacked her across the face. She closed her eyes and felt her inner strength topple like a shaky tower of toy blocks. In the second or two of silence that followed, she could hear Chris's voice: _I mean, it's not your fault that your patients don't get better. Still, you worry. You wonder, if you're just not good enough._

 _Oh dear God, what am I doing?_ she thought. _What am I going to do?_

The waiter came back again and laid the bill on the table. Bonnie collected it and her purse. "I've got this," she said sweetly, "unless you want anything else."

Sister Pete swallowed and pushed herself out of the booth. "No, I've had enough," she said as she got to her feet and made a beeline for the door. She wanted out of and away from all this more than anything else... Out of and away from that diner... Out of and away from that woman and her harrowing explanation of the psycho she was dealing with... Out of and away from the psycho and his terrible mind games... Out of and away from the fallout Toby was sure to face... Out of and away from her own failure...

The brisk air outside hit her and she sucked it in to her lungs in shaky, shallow breaths as she stumbled down Sixth Avenue again towards the subway. She made it two blocks south before she collapsed against a building and started to cry. New York City buzzed around and past her, paying no attention.


End file.
